Opponents Strike Back at Domain-Name Change

Share

Opponents Strike Back at Domain-Name Change

A legal snafu could derail at least part of the plan to create seven new top-level Web domain names, Wired News learned Monday.

Chris Ambler claims he already owns the .web domain name and is considering filing suit in a Southern California court against the International Ad Hoc Committee's (IAHC) use of the name in the plan it is promoting.

Earlier this month, the IAHC announced a plan to add seven new top-level domain names for use in Net addresses: .firm, .store, .web, .arts, .rec, .info, and .nom.

Ambler, who also operates a Web site design business, registered the .web domain with AlterNIC, a maverick Web-naming registry that is opposing the IAHC plan. Ambler claims he was granted the .web domain by Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, which operates under the aegis of the National Science Foundation and was also party to the current plan.

Ambler, who has some financial backing from a group of Southern California auto dealers, vowed to fight against the IAHC plan and said he may sue the 11-member international committee to halt the plan, perhaps as early as Monday.

"We're at a critical point," Ambler said. "We're evaluating all our options, but we think it's pretty interesting that this intellectual property we own and was granted us by the IANA is being taken away by this plan."

Ambler told Wired News he will continue to sell addresses despite the new Web order prescribed by IAHC. However, less than 10 or 15 percent of Web users worldwide can access AlterNIC's novel top-level domains.

Eugene Kashpureff, proprietor of AlterNIC and self-described "foremost Internet revolutionary," said he will not recognize two of the IAHC-mandated top-level domains, .art and .web, because he has already registered them to independent contractors such as Ambler.

Despite his objection to the plan, Kashpureff said he is applying to become one of the plan's 28 new registries, which will compete with the sole company that now holds a virtual monopoly.

Ambler and Kashpureff are not the plan's only opponents. The pair has an unlikely ally in the form of Network Solutions Inc, which obtained the license to operate the InterNIC domain registry in 1995, and has become known as a revolving-door opportunity for high-level US intelligence officials, such as former CIA brass John Deutch, Robert Gates, and Admiral Bobby Inman.

In addition to the possible lawsuit by Ambler, other foes, like Carl Denninger of the Chicago ISP MCS, are threatening to file a protest with the FCC contending that the IAHC plan violates the 1996 Telecommunications Act.